Saturday, January 26, 2013

It is sometimes said that astrology defies the laws of physics. But what laws are these? Do we need to choose between gravity and thermodynamics? Anyone who makes this assertion should state exactly what those
laws are and exactly how astrology ignores, denies, or goes counter to them. What I think you'd probably find would be an attempt to change the
subject to astrology's "claims" of "influence" and "effects" and some interesting and revealing assumptions. Astrological "claims" are not so specific as to be law-like, but are
complex postulations that are rather more like theories than claims.

Theory
can postulate influences and effects, and these might potentially be indirectly
evaluated and inferred, like the Higgs boson, through
observing statistical correlations. "Influence" is just a word that astrologers
have used. Like many words in the English language, the word influence has become somewhat ambiguous by the different meanings it has acquired. Astrological influence could turn out to be something more like quantum entanglement.

From
the experimentation so far, entanglement seems to have no limits. If there
was a primordial Big Bang, then everything was split from everything else at the
beginning and theoretically there should be plenty of entanglements
evident throughout the universe. Microcosms entangled with macrocosms in the astrological sense would be normal and not against natural laws. This relationship in astrology is known as the Hermetic maxim. The nearest macrocosm that everyone on Earth
shares is the local environment of the Sun, Moon, and planets. Such an explanatory theory might challenge some of our conventional beliefs but does not
violate or defy the laws of physics or nature.

Scientific
theory allows the freedom to provide hypothetical interpretations and allows even
extraordinary concepts to be seriously discussed. For example, the extraordinary principle of
nonlocality is well documented through experimental research and might eventually be used to explain macrocosmic observations beyond quantum phenomena.

The
"violates or defies physical or natural laws" assertion is in conflict with scientific curiosity. This
assertion as an argument should always be critically questioned because the discussion can uncover deeper beliefs and lead to a better engagement with astrology. Astrologers have learned a how to
evaluate astrology fairly within scientific frameworks, and are prepared to ensure fairness if given the opportunity.

As a last point, astrologers
can borrow a useful term from quantum physicist David Bohm that
could help overcome typical criticisms of astrology that are redolent of late 19th
century classical science. Instead of "influences," we might say that there are
planetary "implications" that operate between the interplanetary macrocosm and the microcosms of individuals. This suggests Bohm's concept of a deeper
implicate (enfolded) order compared to the explicate (unfolded) order of
our familiar existence according to the symmetry of the Hermetic maxim. Planetary implications referred to in
this manner suggest archetypes and their taxonomies, which are abstract organizational concepts that have their beginnings in astrology.